I hate Autumn. It is one step away from Winter, when my self-esteem and positivity hibernate until Spring and I really struggle to get out of bed. But there are some lovely things about Autumn, too, especially when it doesn’t rain.

The colours, particularly, are really something special. This photo was taken in the garden this afternoon. Amazing.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Windsor is a sunny autumn afternoon of holidayness. Perhaps the last good weekend of the year. We meet at Clapham Junction and get the train to the Best Man’s new house. Out of London, it is quieter, it feels like a day trip to somewhere altogether different, though it only takes half an hour. I am ill, struck down with the usual October cold, but my super-strength pills and woolly hat keep me happy.

We stop at a pub by the river and wile away an afternoon drinking with friends and catching up. It is nice to have people who remember things for me. It is nice to have friends who remember a time when the Husband ate at Chicken Cottage every night – before he became an unbearable foodie.

Back at the Best Man’s new home, we are treated to a medley of curries. He’s a great cook, and a fantastic host, quietly orchestrating everything so that his guests don’t see just how difficult it must be to cook for 12 people in a tiny kitchen.

Conversations range from politics to weddings, stories of a recent French trip and arguments about manuscripts and nineties music.

Everyone is on fantastic form and the wine and beer flow freely.

The argument that the Husband is having with Transport for London, about whether it actually will reduce traffic at Bank station if you turn the escalator off and make people walk down it, continues.

A water experiment attempts to solve the problem once and for all. The Australian and the Husband – in agreement for once – are not impressed with the rest of them.

We all get the late train home. Some of us a little worse for wear, all of us happy and glad for a good day out of London.

Or, Why teenage boys are just about the loveliest thing on the planet.

It maybe isn’t smart for a teacher to publicly announce just how much she loves teenage boys and thinks that they are just the cutest things ever to exist… But I’m going to stick two fingers up to a society that immediately assumes there’s something seedy about saying it, and say it anyway: Teenage boys are the cutest things ever to exist.

For those of you girls out there, who remember teenage boys as a work of sheer evil; callous, cruel, smelly who laugh at you and tell all their friends that you can’t kiss, I ask you to think again. And here’s a story or two from today to help.
This morning, while working studiously on the problem of evil in the world, my class were distracted by a piece of paper that had fallen to the floor. Reading it, one of the class found that it was a carefully written poem about another of the students in the class, a lovely girl who was mortified to read it, finding within the sort of thing only a dangerous stalker – or a totally smitten teenager – might say. Your smile lights up the day. You are not like the others. I want to be near you. Recognising that it could only have been written by someone in the room, I asked them all to get back to what they were doing, and put the poem away in my drawer. At the end of the lesson, one of the boys hung back. He looked a little sheepish. I asked him “Do you want your poem back?”.
“I don’t know what to do, Miss”, he said “Did it fall out of my bag? How did it get there? Do you think they knew that I wrote it?”. I tried to comfort him, tell him that worse things happened to me as a teenager.”My poetry days are over, Miss” he said.
“No, no” I said “Just… maybe… don’t write the girl’s name, in full, as a title to the poem”.
“It’s not even like I like her much, I just… Why do I always do this?” he lamented.
Ah, don’t you miss being 17?

And then, later, when a student from yesterday turned up to a detention I had given him (for not doing any work and telling me when I told him off “It’s not even a lesson I care about!”) I got another little insight into the lives of these little men. Writing an essay on why he was in detention, he instead wrote me an apology “I’m sorry I was rude to you, I’m having a really hard time at the moment. I have a lot on my mind like coursework and homework and well my girlfriend left me and it’s all be a bit weird. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you and I promise to try harder”.

I let him go early. I’m a stickler for romantics.

Friends are the siblings God forgot to give us – Anon

A beautiful weekend, full of fun and colour. I am very blessed to know this little man – who makes me smile with all his wonder at the world. Here he is taking Tiger for a walk in my kitchen. We also went to the Science Museum and played with buttons. We moved the magnets from the fridge and put them on the bins, the toaster, the dishwasher. We hid from the rain under a tree at the bottom of the garden and ‘ssshhh’ed so we could hear the pitter-patter of raindrops. We waved at each other through windows, went for a walk in the park, jumped, danced, tickled, made silly noises, watched Fireman Sam, took a nap, ate pasta, ate biscuits, had tantrums and put on our shoes even though we were in our pyjamas.
I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but it was all worth it.
So, to all the Ponty clan – thanks for a great weekend… I miss you when you’re gone. Thanks for letting me be part of the family for a bit.

Now, for this next activity, we need some equipment. If you look under your tables, you’ll find that I’ve left each of you an invisible bag. Have a look now… An invisible bag, there should be one under every desk? That’s it, Michael! Hold it up so everyone can see. You should all have an invisible bag, just like Michael’s. Don’t look in them just yet… Right. Inside your bag are six invisible thinking hats. We’re going to do an activity that requires you to wear each hat in turn, each hat will make you think in a different way, and when you have finished with each hat, you’re going to put it back in the bag. Understood? Ok. Everyone open up your bag, and find the white hat…. put it on. Well, Sarah, that’s a very fetching shade on you! Jamie, excellent, well done. Ok… The white hat helps you to think about the facts of the problem. Look at your problem sheet and write down ONLY THE FACTS about the problem.
Now, then. We’ve finished with our white hats, put them back in the bag. Jamie! I saw that, pick it up! Throwing your invisible white hat on the floor – shocking behaviour – pick it up…. that’s it… now put it in the bag. Michael – Sarah – it’s lovely that you’ve got your red hats on already, but let’s just wait for the rest of the class… Phillip! Stop fighting over that invisible bag! Don’t make me have to explain to your Mum why you’re in an invisible detention!
So, red hats…
(some time passes by… every time there is a hat change, a significant amount of the students simply throw their invisible hats on the floor, some throw them out of windows, some seem to simply imagine that once they have finished with a hat it vanishes, and they don’t have to clear it up… they think I haven’t noticed, but I have)
Right, you lot. It’s time to pack away, it’s nearly breaktime. But none of you will be going anywhere until this mess is cleared up. Seriously! Look at all these invisible hats strewn around the place! Who do you imagine is going to clear this all up?
A small voice, comes from the back of the class: “Miss? Miss? I have a giant invisible hoover. I can do it!”
And, indeed, he did just that.

(true story)

My kids at school are in the process of applying to universities. In a few weeks, I will be desperately writing references that might help them get to where they really want to be in an environment that is a hundred times more competitive and complicated than it was when I applied.
When I applied, higher education was still free. I got many offers, some from excellent universities. I turned them all down to go to Lampeter, and never looked back. When I applied, a garbled personal statement about my A levels and my church work sufficed. The grades were meaningless, as long as I got the equivalent of two Es. My parents were horrified. I wouldn’t listen.
It’s difficult to tell these children (some of whom I have known since their first day when they were tiny, scared, eleven – and I was older but just as scared) how lucky they are to be at the very start of such a big adventure. It’s difficult, without crying, to tell them how much I owe to those years at university and all the people I met there. There are many things I would do differently now; but if I did them differently, I wouldn’t be me. And all the hurts I caused, or felt, seem to have been washed away – in the main – though there’s a boy who still won’t speak to me despite us both growing up and marrying someone-elses.
My closest friends are people I met in Lampeter, who stood by me through the awkward years of kissing inappropriate boys, learning to drink – and when not to drink, crying, shouting, playing sad songs and locking myself in my room, staying out late, not going to lectures, inviting strange people to stay when they had nowhere else to go, ‘borrowing’ things, never doing my laundry, refusing to eat, bouncing cheques, crying, shouting, laughing, dancing, crying. I was never more miserable, and never more alive.
At Lampeter, I never locked my door, and the worst thing that ever happened was an ex-boyfriend creeping in to leave me a tormented love-note on the back of an old photo. I could pop in to see my dearest friends without ringing in advance (hell, none of us had phones!) and always knew if I popped down to the Union bar, there’d be someone there I could talk to. Even when we had no money at all, and when it rained all day (as it often does in Wales) we still found reason to be happy. I don’t have many memories of things I learned in lectures, but it was here that I learnt most of the important lessons of life.
I miss those days. I miss the people. I miss the freedom that comes from not knowing that every minute is precious and you shouldn’t waste a single one.

I’ve never had lots of girly friends. The phrase ‘girl’s night’ instills such fear in me, that I often make my excuses and stay at home, hiding under my duvet. Hen nights are only bearable if there are like-minded misogynists to whinge with. I hate Sex and the City with a passion. I didn’t wear dresses until I was well into my twenties and I don’t believe in swapping stories about underwear, handbags or haircuts.
But recently, I’ve come to realise that surrounding myself with boys, hanging out only with male friends, has left a hole somewhere. They’re fun, but their shoulders are not comfy to cry on, and they actively run away if I mention that I’m broody, or other such things.
And so today, meeting three lovely ladies who I went to university with, I felt better than I have done in a long time. Yes, we talked about wedding dresses and hair removal and cleavages, but I was alright with that, because we could also talk about our fears – we won’t wear bikinis anymore (why didn’t we do that in our beautiful twenties?), we hate our hair / skin / bums, we worry about relationships, or that our jobs are going nowhere. Do you remember that purple velvet trouser suit? The dinners we made at Uni? That time, with that boy, who’s now a vicar somewhere?
These are girls who I have loved for years and who still feature in my life. I am truly blessed to know these people.
And so, for the Best Friend who complains she never gets Thank You cards from anyone anymore, count this as a Thank You for being you. Wonderful, perfect you. And to my other perfect girls, too – I love you.

My iPhone plays songs on random most of the time, except when I need a particular playlist to match my mood. Today, walking home from school through the park, an old favourite popped up and despite myself I smiled and sang along (loudly in a street in South London – interesting choice).
It’s a song that came out during my first year at Lampeter, maybe a little before, and for over a year it was the only song that got me out of bed in the morning. Or, more accurately, to the bar in the evening. Now I know it’s not a good song. I know that it drove my neighbours crazy. I know that really, it was not the kind of song you’d expect a virginal Theology student and vicar’s daughter to listen to. But I loved it. The only song that could guarantee I’d lose my place at the bar, just to dance to. I won’t tell you here which song it was, suffice it to say none of you would be seen DEAD listening to it, unless you had to – and that it was the inspiration for ‘Union Barbie’ if any readers can remember her.
Above is one of the only pictures of me I can find on the internet from our days at Uni. A time before mobile phones, digital cameras or facebook. A simpler time, when you could pop in to see a friend without planning it months in advance, and lie around without a TV putting the world to rights. I miss that.

The Pope has been in town this week. In fact, he’s been staying just around the corner in the Vatican ambassador’s house in Wimbledon. Many of my facebook friends have snapped him in his Pope Mobile as he did the rounds in the City, and even the kids at school have been talking about it. This morning, knowing that P was out at a course in Billingsgate for the day, I considered getting myself off to Hyde Park, or wherever, to see him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
It isn’t this particular Pope I have a problem with. It isn’t necessarily that he has a dubious history, and has allowed Holocaust deniers back in the Vatican. It isn’t that he seems more concerned with kindness towards the perpetrators of horrific crimes against young people than he does with caring for those children themselves. It isn’t even his bigoted and out-dated attitudes towards sexuality and gender issues. It’s beyond the fact that his church’s insistence that God is anti-contraception contributes to the spread of HIV and AIDS. Or that women are second-class citizens in the Roman Catholic Church. (Though all of those issues I feel passionate and, indeed, bitterly angry about).

 
No, it’s something else. A far worse crime than any of those, and one that he, alone, isn’t responsible for. It’s a problem with the entire idea of a pope at all. The idea that one man on earth can be looked to as an authority on God, that one person can be closer to God than any other. The belief that each of us needs someone to mediate between us and our creator – a belief that is the fundamental opposite of everything that Jesus taught. It’s a problem with the whole Roman Catholic Church. I saw a three-minute film between programmes the other night, that really brought it home. A woman who attributed the healthy child she gave birth to, despite doctors telling her it would suffer some unnamed disability, to a visit to the Pope and a Papal Blessing. Not God. Not God sending her a miracle. Not God intervening in her life with His love… The Pope.
And so, I couldn’t go along to see him because I couldn’t trust myself not to do something that might, in the end, have offended some people of real faith.